Thursday, January 08, 2015

Mapping NYC Transit Sheds

Richard Dunks has created a series of transit maps visualizing how New Yorkers commute to work. The three maps show how workers in each New York City census tract travel to work by subway, bus and / or car.

The Subway Ridership map reveals the number of workers, aged 16 and over, who commute to work by subway in each census tract. As you would expect census tracts near subway stations in general show the highest percentage of workers travelling to work by subway. However the map also reveals that workers in Pelham Bay Park and East New York also have a high percentage of subway commuters, despite having no subway station nearby.

The Bus Transit Shed map shows the number of commuters who travel to work by bus. Again, as you might expect, the map reveals that commuters who don't live near a subway station seem more likely to commute to work by bus. However the percentage of workers in census tracts not near subway stations and travelling to work by bus doesn't seem to be uniform, so presumably there is a story to be told in those tracts with the highest levels of bus commuting usage.

The NYC Vehicle Commuters map visualizes the number of commuters in each census tract who travel to work by car. The map is almost a mirror image of the Subway Ridership map, suggesting that the subway is very successful in persuading people to leave their cars at home.

You can read more about the production of the maps, the data used and more analysis on the commuting trends revealed in the maps on this Datapolitan article.